الفهرس 
Paediatric Bronchial AsthmaOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by recurrent attacks of breathlessness and wheezing, which vary in severity and frequency from person to person.
The level of neurotrophins has been observed to be increased in allergic diseases such as allergic rhinitis, atopic dermatitis and asthma. BDNF is a secretory protein belonging to the neurotrophin family, was shown to modulate EO function & IgE production in asthmatic children.
The aim of this study was to evaluate serum brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in children with persistent asthma and its association with disease severity and its impact on the level of control.
This study was conducted on 80 children 60 of them with persistent bronchial asthma, recruited from the pediatric allergy and immunology clinic of Ain Shams University Children’s Hospital. They were 34 males and 26 females. Their ages ranged between 6 and 14 years with a mean of 9.2± 2.4 years. Twenty healthy age and sex matched children were recruited from outpatient clinic as control (12 males and 8 females).
The asthmatic patients in our study were divided into three groups: each containing 20 children; mild persistent asthmatics, moderate persistent asthmatics and severe persistent asthmatics.
*All children were subjected to Thorough clinical examination together with evaluation of BDNF serum level by ELISA technique.
In the present study, our results showed that there was a highly significant increase in serum BDNF level (37.8 ±
11.52 ng/ml) in asthmatic cases compared to controls (26.15 ±
2.13 ng/ml) (p< 0.001). Our results also showed that serum BDNF level was significantly higher in children with severe persistent asthma (53.9 ± 5.34 ng/ml) than in moderate persistent (41.7 ± 2.5ng/ml) (p < 0.001), and mild persistent asthmatic cases (29.5 ± 2.8 ng/ml) (p < 0.001). Moreover, serum BDNF level was also higher in moderate persistent than in mild persistent asthmatic patients (p < 0.001). On the other hand, there was no difference between mild persistent asthmatic cases and control group as regards serum level of BDNF (P>0.05).Moreover there was a significant correlation between BDNF serum level and peripheral blood counts of eosinophil(r = 0.379, p < 0.001) and serum IgE level (r = 0.924, p < 0.001).
On the contrary, there was no impact of the BDNF serum level on the level of control of asthma.
In conclusion, BDNF, plays a role as a biomarker for clinical severity of bronchial asthma in childhood.